Southeast Asian Community Alliance
Southeast Asian Community Alliance (SEACA) is a social justice organization focusing on the leadership development of Southeast Asian youth and their communities in Los Angeles through intergenerational, cross-cultural dialogue and organizing. Youth Trainer Sophanarot Sam talks about the impact of the public health crisis COVID-19 on SEACA’s youth.
Photo courtesy of SEACA.
Everybody deserves to heal
“Healing for us means being in community with each other and being able to foster a safe enough space for folks to share about what they’re going through. Our students are super swamped right now. They’re like, ‘We’re getting a ton of homework and we’re getting assigned quizzes and tests left and right.’ They’re stressing out because they don’t really have a support system. Their families are working in service industry jobs and a lot of them have lost their jobs. We’re collecting mutual aid funds. We’re trying our hardest to put together these care packages as fast as we can so that we can distribute it directly to our students and their families. We’re practicing healing with our youth and our folks, but we’re not naming it. The hardest place to heal is in the home and with families. I’m really feeling right now for our youth who are stuck in their homes maybe in an abusive family state. How can we support the most vulnerable folks right now? We’re not just training them to become organizers, we’re also training them to learn how to love themselves, love their community and deeply understand how to take care of themselves because there’s just so much work to be done. Everybody deserves to heal.”
LACDMH Strategic Plan Points: 1a.1 education, 1a.2 engagement, 1a.3 follow up, 1b.1 housing, 1b.2 kin, 1b.3 purpose, 1c.1 assessment, 1c.3 outpatient care, 2.1 real-time crisis response, 2.3 restorative care, 4.2 organizational process, 4.3 organizational outcomes.